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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28544022">sunflower mellow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/halloaloe/pseuds/halloaloe'>halloaloe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Pre-Relationship, Weddings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:13:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28544022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/halloaloe/pseuds/halloaloe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Kiyoko and Ryuu get married that summer in a farmhouse among the rolling hills. </p>
  <p>The wheatgrass is golden and gossamer, swaying in time to the steady tempo of a cooling inland breeze. There’s a sunflower field in full midsommar bloom. Golden rays shine through tall wooden windows to gild the dancing dust, sparkling like fairy lights and arcing, playful, through the barn’s one open room. Hitoka cries.</p>
</blockquote><p>Amanai Kanoka is like a breath of fresh winter air in the hot summer sun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amanai Kanoka/Yachi Hitoka, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Shimizu Kiyoko/Tanaka Ryuunosuke, Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka (unrequited), Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sunflower mellow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>❀ ❁ ❀</p><p> </p><p>Kiyoko and Ryuu get married that summer in a farmhouse among the rolling hills.</p><p>The wheatgrass is golden and gossamer, swaying in time to the steady tempo of a cooling inland breeze. There’s a sunflower field in full midsommar bloom. Golden rays shine through tall wooden windows to gild the dancing dust, sparkling like fairy lights and arcing, playful, through the barn’s one open room. Hitoka cries.</p><p>She doesn’t stop crying, not through the vows and not through the rings. Kiyoko looks heavenly in white. Ryuu is bronzed from the sun and looks just as invulnerable, an impenetrable radiance to his movements and his smile.</p><p>Distantly she thinks that Tadashi is bawling too, next to her. Even Kei, to his left, had looked watery on brief glance.</p><p>The newlywed couple turns and raises their interlinked palms to a round of cheers. Hitoka’s cheeks hurt from smiling so widely, a recognizable kind of pain in that happiness — a recurrent theme of standing in Kiyoko’s glow, like staring directly at the sun on a clear blue day, unable to tear your gaze away even as it burns through your retinas and irises and to your core.</p><p>Kiyoko throws her bouquet. Noya and Shouyo both dive for it, petals scattering to the floor. Somehow it lands directly in Tadashi’s arms, brown eyes falling wide and open in surprise.</p><p>Tobio, for some reason, looks relieved. Kei, for a much more specific and pressing reason, looks aghast.</p><p>Shouyo, on the ground in perfect form of a flying receive, snickers. “Tsuk-<em>ki</em>—“ he teases, shrill.</p><p>Perhaps to save his boyfriend from the good-natured heckling, or out of sheer panic from having so many eyes on him, Tadashi shoves the bouquet in the closest person’s arms — Hitoka’s arms.</p><p>Because she’s a good friend and lacks any self-preservation instinct at all, Hitoka holds it up and cheers.</p><p>She’s pretty sure everybody in the room had already seen it arc into Tadashi’s hands, but it’s kind of nice to have old friends swarm and congratulate her, even if it’s about something so silly.</p><p>“Sorry to put you on the spot there, Yacchan,” Tadashi apologizes later in a quiet sidebar, arm raising to scratch the back of his neck. “Ah — I think the bouquet just means good luck, or something. Not necessarily the… the other thing.”</p><p>Hitoka hasn’t been with anyone in a while. There was a girl during her second year of university; they’d only lasted for six months after graduation. But Hitoka thinks, she’s grateful for their time now, if only so she can look at Kiyoko on her wedding day and just smile without heartstrings snapping taut in her chest.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it, Yamaguchi-kun,” Hitoka looks down at the bouquet. It’s a beautiful mix of white-purple-green carnations and peonies and gardenias. The petals are soft under her thumb. “Either… sounds nice, right now.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>❀ ❁ ❀</p><p> </p><p>The reception is beautiful, too. Hitoka with her well-trained, graphic designer’s eye thinks she probably appreciates it most particularly. Seasonal florals and greenery hang overhead, twinkle lights looped around arches. She sips on a fruity sangria and says hello to old friends.</p><p>It’s nice to catch up with everyone. It’s really, really nice.</p><p>Asahi and Nishinoya are back from Europe; Daichi and Sugawara have just closed on a house. Ennoshita has his own private practice with better, more flexible hours now.</p><p>Kageyama, face of Japan National, is stunned to realize he’s a bit of a mini-celebrity — despite many, many clumsy interviews. Hitoka giggles and teasingly offers to help shift his PR image from “good guy but a little awkward” to “the stoicism is a part of the charm, actually.”</p><p>She even manages to congratulate Kiyoko and Ryuu without her heart bullfrog leaping out of her throat.</p><p>Though she had been expecting it, it’s hard to avoid the way it squeezes, just a bit, when Kiyoko levels that brilliant, gleaming, kilowatt smile just for her. Hitoka vaguely thinks she’s going to die, but then again, she’s always thinking that. <em>Not crushing</em>, she reminds herself, <em>just admiring objective perfection.</em></p><p>She’s happy. She must be; everybody else is, and there’s laughter and a steady hum of background conversation, filling the air like buzzing gadflies.</p><p>Hitoka is better about social situations, now. They used to be so much more overwhelming. Yet still a part of her floats around the crowded tables and wonders desperately how early she can take her leave and have it still be etiquettely acceptable. Kei and Tadashi, her usual introverts-in-arms, have snuck away to themselves long ago. Those lucky, lucky bastards.</p><p>Hitoka returns to the drinks table and picks up her second champagne flute of the afternoon.</p><p>That’s when she sees her.</p><p>The woman is beautiful like a frosted window on a snowy morning. Her short, dark hair contrasts sharply with her cool-toned skin and Yachi watches as she ducks under the veranda and out of the sunlight. Something about her looks so out of place in this rustic summer wedding; her features, timeless, seem more befitting of a backdrop of a winter dawn’s pink-purple hues, of morning light bathing fresh snow.</p><p>Maybe that’s why Hitoka feels so unafraid — this woman is a kindred soul, someone else who’s snuck out of their own home painting and ended up in a frame that’s not for them, looking a little bit awkward and a little bit uncomfortable.</p><p>Hitoka downs her glass of bubbling, liquid luck and heads over.</p><p>“H — hi,” she greets her, putting on her best friendly smile. The woman startles and up close, looks so familiar, the memory fishhooked and pulled to the surface — “I… you’re from Niiyama Joshi, right?”</p><p>Images flash across her vision, of televised matches and sportscaster voices. </p><p>With them, rising horror.</p><p>“Amanai-san… from the National team?”</p><p>She is <em>not</em> hitting on Amanai Kanoka. <em>The</em> Amanai Kanoka of Japan National Women’s Volleyball fame.</p><p>Surprise lights up Kanoka’s features. If she notices the sheer <em>fear</em> that Hitoka’s sure is broadcasted in her own brown eyes, she doesn’t point it out. Instead, she beams.</p><p>“Yes, that’s me! Ha, ha.” Kanoka’s smile is diffident, close-lipped, but there’s a hint of pink that dusts the top of her pale cheeks. Hitoka wants to reach out and feel the warmth of her blush, like thawing her hands by the fire in the wintertime. “Um… you’re from Karasuno, right? One of their managers?”</p><p>She remembers her. <em>She remembers me.</em> Japan National Women’s Volleyball’s Amanai Kanoka remembers her.</p><p>Hitoka squeaks, accidentally biting her tongue in the process. Her hands raise to cover her mouth retroactively. “You remember me!”</p><p>Kanoka raises a hand to fill with the back of her short-cropped strands. Hitoka fidgets too and offers another tentative smile.</p><p>“Of — of course I do,” Kanoka says, “I’m um — friends with Ryuu, so… of course I was watching your team a lot!”</p><p>Hitoka giggles. “I was watching yours, too, but unlike you, I don’t really have an excuse. Your team was just… wow! That year.”</p><p>She seems to relax a little bit at that, and Hitoka manages to drag a tale of her storied career out of her. It’s really, really easy to be impressed — Kanoka has a list of accomplishments a mile long. In a gathering this size where half of the guests are probably professional volleyball players, Hitoka thinks Kanoka is probably one of the <em>most</em> impressive, and tells her so honestly.</p><p>“These formal events are always a little bit awkward for me,” Kanoka admits eventually after Hitoka has poured her a second glass of prosecco. She fiddles with the straps of her knee-length dress, navy blue tulle with a cami neckline that shows off her defined shoulders.</p><p>“Me, too,” Hitoka admits, “I didn’t really have anyone to — I mean, uh, are you here with anyone, Amanai-san?”</p><p>“Ah, not really. Well — I know Ryuu, we go back for a while. Um. But, ah, if you’re asking about… a date, then no.”</p><p>“Well,” Hitoka smiles. Golden stalks undulate in the fields of her periphery. The bright, dazzling sun beats down and warms her from the outside in. “Do you want to get out of here, then?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>❀ ❁ ❀</p><p> </p><p>Kanoka’s palms are a little bit sweaty and it’s so, so sweet. Hitoka pulls her away from the main affair and into the looming sunflower fields, balmy yellow heads reaching for the skies.</p><p>They’re so tall now, at their peak, at the height of July. They tower easily over Hitoka and the biggest of them provide even Kanoka with some protection against the unforgiving sun.</p><p>Hitoka adds the fading sounds of the wedding party behind them to the lo-fi soundtrack of summer, next to humming crickets and the whirr of electric fans.</p><p>“It’s quieter out here,” she says, and her voice sounds louder in comparison.</p><p>“Much better,” Kanoka smiles.</p><p>Hitoka catches the sweet pink of her flush before Kanoka turns to play bashfully with a sunflower, pulling the strong stalks to her, delicate fingers pastel against bright yellow petals. Her shining crown scrapes the sky.</p><p>“Hey, Amanai-san,” she perks, “Look over here?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>When Kanoka turns, she snaps the photo — a click of her phone camera gives her away. Kanoka realizes, then, and laughs, surprised and buoyant.</p><p>“You look so beautiful,” Hitoka murmurs when she shows it to her. She looks curious, not yet startled, dark eyes wide and framed by doe lashes. In it, her head is haloed by the western-moving sunlight.</p><p>“I think it’s you who’s too kind,” Kanoka smiles, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “And… too cute, too.”</p><p>Hitoka giggles. She has to tear her eyes away or she’ll get lost in it, wondering what it would be like to play with her raven hair. She takes the moment to send the picture to the newest contact in her phone. Her heartbeat flutters when she sees the name. The sun is a welcome explanation for the warmth of her cheeks — she feels it everywhere, full-bodied.</p><p>She has to crane her neck to look Kanoka in the eyes again. “When I was little I used to wonder what it would be like to be so tall,” she muses.</p><p>“It’s… not as fun as you think, probably,” Kanoka flushes.</p><p>Hitoka offers her a gentle smile. She wants to thumb at her cheek and brush the bashfulness away. “Really? I don’t .. sometimes I just feel really small.”</p><p>“That makes two of us.” Kanoka admits, quietly. Her hand lifts from her hair and she looks almost as if she wants to reach out, but doesn’t. “I don’t think that feeling… I don’t think it matters, what you look like. It’s about, um.”</p><p>She spreads her palm against her bare chest. Her fingers are so long. Hitoka wants to press her lips to each of them individually.</p><p>“Yeah,” she whispers, “I understand.”</p><p>“I used to dislike my height,” Kanoka’s voice is soft; Hitoka strains to hear it above the whispering wind. She reaches for a sunflower stalk again. “But… it’s okay, now. I think it’s nice. It helps me play volleyball. It helps me see the sunflowers.”</p><p>“What do they look like to you?” Hitoka wonders.</p><p>“Beautiful,” she breathes, “Look — they’re growing towards the sun.”</p><p>“Wow,” Hitoka has to stand on her tip-toes — but she’s right. They’re turning to face the lowering afternoon sun, rows and rows of them, black eyes and marigold petals leaning into the light.</p><p>When she looks at Kanoka again, there’s something impossibly gentle in her expression. “What do they look like to you?”</p><p>Hitoka inhales.</p><p>“Well,” she murmurs, “Why don’t you see for yourself?”</p><p>Then Yachi Hitoka does something so un-Yachi-Hitoka-like that she thinks later that this memory will haunt her for many, many nights. She acts without thinking — she reaches out and grasps Kanoka’s arm again, then pulls her down into the dirt. She tumbles down easily, too, when Kanoka reaches out to grip her wrists, and they collapse into a pile together, giggling, bodies kicking up dust.</p><p>Sunlight peeks through the brown stalks and illuminates Kanoka’s face in bright stripes. Hitoka is breathless with laughter, her chest full of it.</p><p>“You’re got dirt on your nice blouse,” Kanoka says, softly, reaching out to adjust the white ruffle.</p><p>Their faces are so, so close. Her breath stutters.</p><p>Kanoka’s hands are trembling; she can feel it through the ruche. Hitoka’s sure, then, that hers are too — she knows it, scared little Yachi Hitoka, feeling like her heart is falling out of her throat again. But this time, for the first time, it’s not… that bad of a feeling.</p><p>She thinks she could learn to look forward to it, even, as long as Kanoka keeps looking at her like <em>that</em>.</p><p>The wind catches. It tickles the back of her neck where her hair has lifted, and pulls the sunflowers gently along before they bend too far and straighten again. Pull, release. Pull, release.</p><p>Hitoka smiles. Kanoka’s wrist is softer than any flower petal.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was written for HQ Rarepair Week 2020 for the prompts FORMAL / TIMESKIP / FLOWERS. </p><p>You can find me on twitter @halloaloe. As always, thank you so much for reading, and comments and kudos are very much appreciated!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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